A Game of Dodgeball
by Through Darkness and Light
Summary: Peeta's life is boring. It consists of getting up, going to school, working at his family bakery and going back to bed. So how is an unplanned gym class going to change up his day? Also, why is Cato leaning so close? CatoXPeeta AU ONESHOT


I can't help but love these two.  
Disclaimer: Peeta, Cato and anything associated with the Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins.  
Warnings: Light yaoi, OOC-ness

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If you were to ask Peeta Mellark how his life was, he'd give you an empty stare and a retort that it was boring as hell. He lived life like most normal teenagers his age would do. On weekdays he'd get up early, go to school, help his parents in the family bakery, do his homework and then go to sleep again. Pretty monotonous really.

As he woke up on another ordinary Thursday morning he didn't really feel like getting up. His alarm had gone off at 5:45 am as usual. Normally he'd get up immediately so he wouldn't fall asleep again and take a nice hot shower to wake up. After that, eat breakfast and maybe help his dad in the bakery that filled the bottom floor of their building. Blue eyes stare up at the ceiling above him, idling trying to count all of the popcorn like pieces that covered it. It wasn't until the sun started shining through his window that he realized that he had been out of sorts for over an hour. Robotically he sat up in his bed and ran one of his hands through his ashy blond hair. With a sigh, he got up and trudged over to his dresser to grab his school uniform and go into the adjoined bathroom.

He stripped off his pajamas and locked both of the doors leading into the bathroom. Another reason why Peeta made it a habit of getting up early was because his older brother Rye, who slept in the other bedroom, tended to get up late and hog the bathroom for as long as he deemed necessary, which was more than often over an hour because he liked to annoy Peeta.

A quick shower later and Peeta hurried down the stairs with his backpack slung over one of his shoulders. The backpack was thrown onto a couch situated in the back room which was also the break room used by the bakery employees. It was past 7 am by the time he popped into the kitchen and saw his father pulling some freshly baked bread out of the oven. The man turned around when he heard Peeta walking into the kitchen and gave his youngest son a tired smile, the wrinkles in his face clearly showing his age.

"Good morning Peeta. Up late I see." His father commented as he placed the bread into a woven crate which would go on the display just as the bakery opened.

"Is there something I can do for you before I leave for school?" Peeta asked his father, ignoring his last comment. On the outside his family seemed near perfect, but the relationship between the family members was rocky and Peeta always felt like the dark horse out of the bunch of them.

His father looked over at him again, eyes roaming over his black school uniform. "I'd ask you to bring in some of those flour bags for me, but it wouldn't do well if your uniform gets soiled."

"It's fine." The blond told his father and he went to the storage room.

The flour bags were lying on the floor in the back corner of the storage room and Peeta kneeled down to pick one up and easily slung it over his shoulders. Despite the fact that the bag weighed over 100 pounds Peeta had no problem carrying it around at all. Years back his father sprained his back as he had carried the bags his whole life and as he aged it was only getting harder. So, at the tender age of 12 Peeta had been determined to help his father carrying the bags around so he wouldn't hurt himself anymore. It was easy to say that his first few attempts had been utter failures, him being a small boy who nearly had no strength in his body at all. After years of practice and with the help of puberty he'd been able to carry them around for him father for a while now.

The flour bag thumped loudly as Peeta let it slide off of his shoulder and onto the counter. He looked down at his uniform and started brushing off the white dust as well as he could. As much as he didn't mind his uniform, it was a pain for it to be black for a baker's son like him.

His father gave him a mumbled thank you before Peeta looked at the clock as he grabbed a bun out of one of the crates and noticed the time. With a small wave he went back to the break room to grab his backpack and hurried out of the back door. All around him other children were pouring out of their houses, meeting up with each other and walking to school.

The city of Panem was relatively large, considering its location deep within the country close to the mountains. The population was well over 1 million inhabitants, but there were only a handful of schools around. Two of each 'type' actually. Two primary schools, two high schools and two universities. This was because of the distinct social difference between the people that lived around the city center and the people who lived in the city center. Panem was essentially divided in thirteen districts as they called it. The center being called the Capitol and the surrounding districts all just had numbers according to how close they were to the center.

Peeta lived in district 12, thus living in the farthest district from the center. It was also one of the poorer districts as well. If it weren't for the Capitol government's laws and social aid, he probably wouldn't even have been able to go to school.

As usual he stopped in front of house near the edge of the district. He waited a few minutes with his hands in his pockets before another male youth joined him. They waved at each other. The tall dark haired youth stopped next to him, the two of them weren't really friends, but they had a mutual friend.

"Morning Gale, Peeta."

Speak of the girl and she appears. Katniss walks down the steps of her front porch, her little sister Primrose walking behind her.

"Hey there Catnip, Prim." Gale greeted the both of them, smiling as his grey sparkled showing off how handsome he actually was.

Katniss and Peeta exchanged greetings as well before the four of them started off towards school which was situated in the middle of the outer districts, between the borders of district 6 and 7.

Other students, all between the ages of 12 and 18, poured towards the school and before long Peeta could see the distinct shape of it rise above the other buildings in the area. The Cornucopia High School looked smaller than it actually was and its golden color was blinding if hit by the sunlight.

Once they arrived at the entrance Katniss and Peeta said goodbye to Primrose and Gale as they all head off towards their own homerooms. It was Prim's first year here, having turned twelve in the summer. Katniss and Peeta were both 17 and Gale, at 18, was a year older than them.

Thus began just another ordinary day. Peeta only half-listened to what their homeroom teacher had to say, an annoying woman who came from the Capitol to 'teach them their full potential'. To say that Effie Trinket was an eyesore was a serious understatement. Like all Capitol inhabitants, she was dressed in the most flamboyant ways accompanied by blinding bright colors. Why the people in the Capitol found their clothes fashionable would forever evade Peeta. He stopped wondering about that during his second year of high school.

Today Effie was wearing a spring-green suit, which clashed severely with her bright pink hair. Her high voice echoed through the room as she blabbed on about something new that had happened in the Capitol. Peeta had always hated the posh accent that she had; all Capitol people spoke with the accent. As if their clothing wasn't enough to set them apart from all of the other districts in Panem.

The bell rang, cutting off Effie's voice and she quickly said goodbye to all of her homeroom students as they hurried out of the room.

Thursday wasn't really an exciting day. All of the students had to follow obligatory lessons, but were still allowed to choose two or three of their own lesson options. It was just Peeta's luck that Thursday was a day where he didn't have any of his options. History of Panem, Language Arts, Social Studies and Mathematics all bored Peeta immensely. His last class of the day would be PE, which wasn't that bad if you thought about it in the long run. Who wouldn't like to run around and play sports after such a long and boring day? Peeta was one of the few who thought it wasn't any fun. It would have been, he thought to himself more often than once, if it weren't a total mix up of a few classes.

The sports center wasn't big enough to have the multiple classes who had Physical Education during the same hour to all do their own programs, so the school board had taken care of it by just making it one big class. Evidently all of the different districts were mixed together from all of the age groups that attended the school. Doesn't sound that bad does it? Well, to make matters worse you had to consider the social standings of the districts. The first 4 districts, which were located close to the center, had good relationships with the Capitol and were more privileged and richer than the other districts and were more often than not called Careers. Apparently all those students decided they were too good to be alongside 'commoners' and regularly picked on the students from lower districts.

The day went by with a blur and before Peeta knew it he was standing in front of his gym locker. With a sigh he opened it and was about to reach inside to grab his gym clothing when it swung shut. Blue eyes looked up and narrowed slightly at the hand that had closed the locker right in his face. They trailed from the hand, up the arm and to the face of the perpetrator.

Muscular arm, light blond hair, flashing blue eyes and an annoying smirk. Peeta groaned inwardly and glared at the other blond male.

"What's the matter baker's boy? Pee your pants in fright?"

"What do you want, Cato?" Peeta forced himself to say.

Cato smirked at him and his cronies were chuckling behind him. Four upper districts teenagers of Peeta's age that liked to terrorize the rest of the students in their year. Marvel and Glimmer both lived in district one and Clove and Cato came from district two.

"You're slow today. Class starts in five minutes and you're not even dressed yet. Pity that you're going to have to run laps for coming late today." Cato told him, moving so he was leaning against Peeta's locker, further obscuring him from getting his sporting clothes.

Every day. This had happened nearly every day since he had been placed in the same PE class as the four Careers. Sure, they picked on other students as well, but for some reason they always had to go after him. Peeta never understood why as he had never done anything to them at all. He wasn't one to attract attention.

"I won't be late if you leave me alone." Was his answer.

Glimmer pushed back her long blonde hair as she stepped towards Peeta. "I don't see you doing anything to make us leave you alone." She taunted him.

Their taunting usually never worked. It had once though, the year before. Peeta had been having a particularly bad day when the Careers decided he was their plaything for the day and Cato had been leaning on his locker as usual. Needless to say a loud grunt and a shove later and Cato crashed into a nearby trashcan. They'd avoided him for a few days after that, clearly shocked that he would ever dare to retaliate and that he was so strong, but before long they were back to their old ways.

With his fists clenched Peeta walked over to Glimmer, towering over her as he looked down at her. "I wasn't aware that girl's were even allowed on this side of the locker room. Are you sure you're not gender confused?"

"You'd better watch your mouth, baker." Marvel stepped forward as well, pushing Peeta's shoulder to get him away from Glimmer.

"Why, I ought to-" Peeta stopped as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"You should all run along. There's no fun in stalling someone so they're late and then coming late yourselves am I right?" Gale looked specifically at Cato, who had pushed himself off of Peeta's locker to glare at Gale.

"Whatever." Cato grunted and he sent Peeta another look before he turned around to leave the locker room, the other three quickly walking after him.

"I don't need your help Gale."

"Seneca is in a bad mood today. If you were to come late then it'd be more than running laps." Gale opened Peeta's locker and tossed him his gym clothes. "You'd better hurry. You've got another two minutes or so."

Peeta watched Gale leave and sighed as he started to strip out of his uniform. He didn't need Gale to 'protect' him. Peeta was more than capable of taking care of himself. No sooner that he walked out of the locker room did Seneca Crane, the PE teacher, walk into the gym and blow his whistle.

Like the trained students that they were, everyone quickly moved towards the bleachers and sat down to wait for their instructions. Peeta quickly snagged a spot between Gale and Katniss, seeing Seneca's glower. Suddenly he was thankful that Gale had intervened when he had.

"Alright you lot, since some older students decided to be funny last class. The obstacle course evaluation has been cancelled for today." There were some shouts of happiness and some groans and Seneca glared into the large group.

"Without proper time to create a proper lesson and seeing as it is the last class of the day for you all, I've decided that we're going to have us all a little dodge ball tournament."

This earned the bearded teacher several cheers and he hushed the students.

"You'll all be divided into groups of 7 and we're playing with the knock-out rules. Team 1 beats team 2 and goes up against the winner of team 3 versus team 4 and etcetera. You all know the drill."

A young woman in red clothes hurried over to Seneca with a large bowl and held it for him as he placed his hand in it and took a piece of paper out of it.

"Everyone's names have been placed on one of these pieces of paper. Your teams will be selected at random."

Seneca proceeded by calling out names and appointing teams. Peeta waited anxiously as the students around him went to their respective teams. He watched as Primrose left the bleachers to join her team and also as Marvel stood up and joined her team as well. Glimmer and Clove were called out later as well and Peeta almost let out a sigh of relief.

"Team 10 will consist of: Katniss Everdeen," Katniss got up from her spot beside Peeta, "Gale Hawthorne," Gale got up next to him with a grin and bumped fists with Katniss.

Peeta stopped listening to Seneca as he called out several other names. A small girl joined them, along with some other students that Peeta had seen before but never took the time to ask their names.

"Alright. The last seven are team 11. Team 1 against team 5 is first. May the odds be ever in your favor!" Seneca turned to grab several bright pink balls as the first two teams assembled on each side of the gym.

Before he knew it, Peeta was brought out of his musings by a rough shove that almost sent him toppling off of the bleachers.

"Didn't you hear me baker boy? Get up and join the stupid team."

"Fuck." Peeta muttered under his breath as he recognized the voice. Today really wasn't his day.

"What'd you say there?"

"I didn't say anything." The blond stood up and glared up at Cato before looking over the other's shoulder to see who else was in their team.

A tall, dark skinned male was standing with his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face. He wasn't that happy with the team either. Standing next to him was a petite red head and another young boy with curls.

"Are you done staring or are you going to stand there all day?" Cato snarled at Peeta.

"Don't get you panties in a twist Cato." Peeta pushed past him and joined the others. "Uh, hi. My name is Peeta." He smiled as best he could as he waved at the others, ignoring Cato stomping towards him from behind.

"Thresh." The dark male grunted.

The red head smiled back at him slightly. "I'm Jennifer. The curly haired boy next to me is Alex."

The others introduced themselves and Peeta nodded. Thresh seemed to be a strong individual and the red head seemed like she was very fast. Good. It didn't look like they were going to be pulverized. At least they were probably going to win one game.

Cato just scoffed at the other members of his team. "I don't care. Let's just win this thing and get this all over with."

Peeta turned and glared at Cato, their blue eyes locked as Cato glared back. "Do you always have to be so self-righteous?"

"Maybe I do. Do you always have to be so insufferable?"

"Insufferable! Look who's talking." Peeta amazed himself as he retorted. Sure, he'd stood up for himself before but he'd never done it so vehemently.

"How would you feel if I-"

"Could the two of you just shut up?"

Cato and Peeta both turned to Thresh. "We're supposed to be a team and I don't know about the two of you, but I don't like losing. So let's all just sit down and watch so we can see how the other teams play."

Jennifer smoothly walked over to the both of them, giving Cato an empty stare as she grabbed onto Peeta's shoulders and led him away from Cato to sit him down on the bleachers.

The tall blond grumbled under his breath as he turned to watch the other teams play. He'd been dealt a card that he did not want to have, but for now he'd have to play nice. After this he could go back to annoying the crap out of Peeta.

**X**

"Jen! Pass it!" Peeta ran towards the midline of the playing field and caught the ball after Jennifer tossed it towards him. He moved the ball to his right hand and threw it, hitting the last player on their opponent's team.

Seneca blew his whistle, signaling the end of the game. "Team 11 wins! Team 6 can go and watch from the bleachers."

Peeta smiled as Jennifer, Alex and Thresh walked over to him as they congratulated him on the expert throw. Nervously he rubbed the back of his head. "It wasn't all me. I mean Thresh got a few players out as well and if it weren't for Jennifer's good pass I never would have gotten the guy."

"Save it baker boy. Can't you just take a compliment when you're given one?" Cato muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.

Peeta ignored Cato, not even looking in his direction.

"We made it to the finals!" Alex announced happily.

"So we did. We have to face the winner of team 10 versus team 2 now." Thresh turned to the playing field.

Team 10 was probably going to win, Peeta thought to himself. Katniss and Gale worked together flawlessly and had a pretty cooperative team which made it even easier for them. Team 2 had Marvel and some other strong, older students along with Prim, but they were a mess.

Seneca blew his whistle as tossed several pink balls into the fray and the match began. As suspected Katniss and Gale worked together to get the stronger players off first and the match was over within minutes.

"We've got to work together to get them. They're a pretty strong team, but I'm sure that we can win if we try our best." Peeta instructed the others as they got ready for the final match. Everyone voiced their agreement and Peeta even thought he saw Cato nod out of the corner of his eye.

The whistle sounded and the balls flew into the playing field. Peeta easily caught one and tossed it to the other side, hitting someone in the side. The crowd on the bleachers cheered as the girl walked off the playing field and Peeta dodged some balls. He watched as Katniss passed the ball over to Gale, who had Thresh right in throwing distance.

Before Peeta could even shout for the tall boy to watch out, Gale had already tossed the ball. Thresh got hit in his leg. He walked off of the playing field.

It was game on then and Peeta got real serious. Balls flew through the field, quickly decimating the amount of players.

"Pass it here!"

Peeta looked to the side to see Cato holding his hands out for the ball he had just caught.

"Pass it Peeta!"

Peeta quickly passed the ball over to Cato, just in time to dodge another one. He looked away for a moment but he still heard the cheers. Once he looked up he saw that Gale was walking off of the field with a sour expression on his face. Katniss was the only one left, a ball in her hands as she looked at her opponents.

With his mind so focused on the game Peeta hadn't even noticed that he and Cato were the only ones left in his team. His moments of indecision left him wide open though. The bright pink ball entered his peripheral vision and he already knew it was too late for him to dodge. He braced himself for the impact and waited, but it never came.

There was a clear 'thud', a signal that the ball had hit someone, but it wasn't him. Peeta looked up to see that Cato had stepped in front of him, the ball rolling off to the side.

He was about to demand Cato what the hell he had done that for when the other blond walked past him. "I know you can hit her. You've got one shot."

"But-" Cato motioned for Peeta to finish the game before he could protest any further.

There was only one playable ball left in the field as the others had rolled out. Both Katniss and Peeta looked at each other for a moment and then looked at the ball. It was slowly rolling towards the midline near where Katniss was standing. Peeta broke into a run to grab the ball before it rolled over to her side. Katniss had the same idea, determined to get to the ball before Peeta.

They both scrambled towards the ball, as cheering of the other students filled the gym. And for a split second Peeta thought he would be too late to get the ball. But as his fingers brushed over the ball and hearing Katniss growl he knew he had won. He gripped the ball and tossed it, watching as it flew through the air and hit Katniss in the head.

The whistle was blown and the cheers got even louder as Peeta walked over to where Katniss had stumbled.

"You okay there?" He asked her.

"I'll be fine. My pride is wounded but that's about it." They both chuckled as he held out his hand and helped her up.

"That was a good game."

"I could say the same for you Peeta."

"Team 10 wins the tournament! Class is over now and remember, next time we'll be running through that obstacle course!" Seneca shouted as the students all hurried towards the locker rooms.

Peeta smiled as some of his teammates congratulated him once again and waved as they all went their separate ways.

The boys' side of the locker room was busy to say the least. The game had left them all excited and the fact that school was out made it all the better. Peeta slowly made his way to his locker. It would be crowded in his row, so he wasn't in a rush to get changed. It was always better to wait until most of the others had already gone.

Gale walked by, already dressed. "Hey Peeta, Catnip and I are going to go wait outside alright?"

"Sure thing. See you guys in a few!"

The dark haired youth departed and soon Peeta could reach his locker and get dressed again. He pulled his shirt off, tossing it into his gym locker. Some of the last guys said their goodbyes to him just as he pulled on his black trousers and reached for his white top.

As soon as they were out of the locker room a hand shot out and closed his locker right in front of him.

"What do you want Cato?" Peeta looked at where the other male was standing.

"Do I have to want something to come over here?"

"I guess not, but why would you come over here without a reason? It's not like we're friends or anything…"

Cato smirked at him and Peeta's stomach flipped. Sure Cato had smirked at him before, but this one seemed different.

"I just wanted to tell you that you played a good game."

"Alright, what's the catch?" Peeta looked around to see if Marvel was standing in wait somewhere, waiting for Peeta to let his guard down.

Cato's low chuckle vibrated through the empty locker room. "What? Is it so hard to believe that I'm actually telling you that you did a good job on something?"

"Yes. It is." Peeta slipped his arms into his sleeves and started buttoning up the shirt.

He looked down at the shirt to make sure that he got the buttons in the right place, so that it wouldn't end up crooked. Once he looked up his eyes clashed with Cato's deep blue ones. When had the other male gotten so close?

"I'll give you that…" Peeta could have sworn that Cato's eyes drifted down to his lips, but once he blinked Cato was staring right back at him and he didn't know if he had imagined it or not. "You know that saying that they have, where a boy always teases the person he likes?"

What was Cato even talking about? He was really confusing Peeta. "Well, yes but what does that have to do with anything?"

Cato stepped to the side, keeping his arm on Peeta's locker. Not wanting to turn away from Cato, Peeta turned along with him unknowingly pressing his back against the lockers and trapping himself between them and Cato.

The taller blond chuckled again, that unnerving smirk that threw Peeta off still adorned on his face. "It has everything to do with it."

Before Peeta could even respond to that, Cato had already leaned forward and closed the gap between them as he pressed his lips against Peeta's.

To say that Peeta was shocked was a complete understatement. His muscles tensed as an immediate result of his surprise, but once his eyes locked with Cato's again he relaxed completely, even softly pressing back into the kiss.

Cato leaned back slightly and pressed their cheeks together as he whispered into Peeta's ear. "See you tomorrow Peeta." And he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared.

It took a few moments for Peeta's mind to reboot and calculate what had just happened. He felt his cheeks heat up as he blushed and quickly changed and grabbed his things. Before he knew it, Peeta was outside hurrying towards Katniss, Prim and Gale.

"Hey Peeta! Congrats on winning the tournament!" Prim piped up as she saw him walking towards them.

"Uh… Yeah, thanks Prim." He licked his lips, the back of his mind registering a different taste that Cato must have left behind.

Katniss eyed him curiously and was about to ask Peeta about the blush on his cheeks and his far off look when Gale wrapped his arm around her shoulder and winked at her.

"So Peeta, how was your day?" Gale asked as they all started walking.

"My day?"

"Yeah. You're always complaining about how boring school can be. That last minute change in gym class sure made everything different didn't it?"

"It did… I had an interesting day today." Peeta smiled at the others. It had been an interesting day indeed and from the looks of it, he probably wouldn't have another boring day for a while.

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Teehee. **Read and Review please!**


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